If there is any game that can justify its violence, it is Bioshock Infinite. It is a story about a violent man, and about the violence within society. It’s a story about extreme beauty, and extreme ugliness. It’s also saying a lot about videogames, and as it delivers its story and themes, it does it through patterns and behavioural codes that we all understand. The violence isn’t only justified by character, story or themes. It’s justified by the language of game mechanics that the game is using.

What games can’t justify their use of extreme violence? Almost everything else. And yet I haven’t seen commentators call all those other games out. Why wasn’t Gears of War widely taken to task for gruesome violence? Why wasn’t Modern Warfare 2? Was it because those games didn’t aspire to be anything other than silly old videogames? Was it because those games knew their place?

But wait! There’s more. On Eurogamer, Richard Cobbett paints a fond retrospective look at that otherBioShock sequel, BioShock 2. Elsewhere, Daniel Weissenberger digs even deeper into some thematic roots and cousins with a retro review of System Shock 2.

TOMB RAIDER

The other AAA name on everyone’s fingertips these last few weeks remains Crystal Dynamics’ and Rhianna Pratchett’s Tomb Raider reboot.

Straddling the two games above, Paul Tassi of Forbes wonders if we aren’t oversaturating games with ultraviolence: “I have nothing against killing in games. It’s just that as video games continue to evolve as storytelling vehicles, this idea that the main protagonist has to kill HUNDREDS of people per game is starting to seem a bit odd.”

Touching on the recent ousting of Sweatshop from the Apple Games store, the latest in a series of serious games dropkicked from the outlet as ‘unsuitable,’ Jorge Albor wonders: where is the place for them?

And here’s another German article brought to our attention via Senior German Correspondent, who describes this piece by Magnus Hildebrandt as “the definitive guide to understanding Kentucky Route Zero and its cultural roots, references and relations.”

BUT IS IT WAR

Regulars of Critical Distance know well my fondness for essays on the intersection of military, industry and games. Here is a fabulous piece courtesy of Jeremy Antley on how nascent drone warfare and the recent sequestration has an impact on military war games.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s John Walker has posted a new mission statement on feminist allyship within games writing. “Many women are mistreated and misrepresented within the games industry,” he writes. “It’s not a matter of opinion, a political position, or claim made to reinforce previous bias. It’s the demonstrable, sad truth.”

What’s the big deal with this Game Developers Conference everyone and their dog went to in March, anyway? I couldn’t adequately convey everything which went down but here is a great sampling of posts on the conference (and GDC-adjacent events) which showed up in my feeds these last two weeks.

RPS’s own wayward ronin word master Cara Ellison, during a post-convention victory dinner, put it best: “GDC is where we first hear about all the stuff everyone will be talking about next year.” Maybe it’s a trend-setter, or maybe it’s just a megaphone for gentle tickles of trends that are already in motion, but the point remains: GDC tends to be pretty indicative of where we’re at. People often view E3 in that light, but the fact is, it’s a dinosaur wreathed in fireworks, frilly undergarments, and little else. E3 is a projection. GDC has evolved into its opposite: introspection. We look inward, and then we discuss. And this year – thanks to things like the renewed prominence of PC gaming, a focus on indies, and the #1ReasonToBe talk – I came away quite optimistic.

Responding to recent controversies about hired models at GDC parties, Jason Killingsworth invites us to look at it from a different angle: his sister, a professional model, has attended plenty of similar events, and “there was nothing shady about the practice.” Killingsworth adds, “The way I see it, a little demystification goes a long way.”

You may have also heard some murmurings on the Twitters about Lost Levels, a GDC “unconference” held across the street from the conference. George Weidman has an excellent write-up of the event. We should have a more thorough collection of video, photos and write-ups from the official site in a few days, in time for next week’s roundup.

As always, we are dependent upon our readers for sending in your reading recommendations via Twitter and email. And yes, we welcome self-submissions! Don’t be shy.

Join us next week where we will hopefully have a slightly more manageable list of links for you to dig through. For now, we apologize if we just ruined your Sunday plans. But I think we can all agree it was surely worth it.